Our Views: President Obama’s poor decision on Keystone

Say what you will about Mitch McConnell, the new Senate majority leader is a political pro who can count. So he knew that the effort to override a presidential veto on the Keystone XL pipeline was bound to fail, as most Democrats would oppose it.

The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote for an override, and even with the gains by McConnell’s Republicans in last year’s election, 67 votes was going to be impossible to find. The 62-37 vote included a number of pro-energy Democrats, but the opposition to Keystone has become a totem of the environmental movement. Both Louisiana senators correctly supported the override.

We think the Republicans are right on this issue. It’s a project that will provide some jobs for construction workers, and we do not see it as damaging the environment; the oil from Alberta will be refined somewhere, and it ought to be in Gulf Coast refineries served by Keystone.

The president is wrong on this one, playing politics with energy policy.